Apology for himself against the Books of Rufinus

²⁷ I wonder that you with your consummate wisdom have not understood my method of exposition. When I say, 'But not in such a way that, as held by another heresy, all should be placed in one rank, that is, all by a reforming process become angels,' I clearly show that the things which I put forward for discussion are heretical, and that one heresy differs from the other. Which (do you ask?) are the two heresies? The one is that which says that all reasonable creatures will by a reforming process become angels; the other, that which asserts that in the restitution of the world each thing will become what it was originally created; as for instance that devils will again become angels, and that the souls of men will become such as they were originally formed; that is, by the reforming process will become not angels but that which God originally made them, so that the just and the sinners will be on an equality. Finally, to show you that it was not my own opinion which I was developing but two heresies which I was comparing with one another, both of which I had found stated in the Greek, I completed my discussion with this ending:

“These things, as I have said before, are more obscure in our tongue because they are put in a metaphorical form in Greek; and in every metaphor, when a translation is made word for word from one language into another, the budding sense of the word is choked as it were with brambles.”

If you do not find in the Greek the very thought which I have expressed, I give you leave to treat all that I say as my own.